Oracle8i supports user-defined composite type or object type. Any instance of an object type is called an object. An object type can be used as the type of a column or as the type of a table.

In an object table, each row of the table stores an object. You can uniquely identify an object in an object table with an object identifier.

A reference is a persistent pointer to an object, and each reference can contain an object identifier. The reference can be an attribute of an object type, or it can be stored in a column of a table. Given a reference, an object can be retrieved.

Requirements

The procedural option is needed to use this package. This package must be created under SYS (connect/as sysdba). Operations provided by this package are performed under the current calling user, not under the package owner SYS.

Datatypes, Exceptions, and Security for UTL_REF

Datatypes

An object type is a composite datatype defined by the user or supplied as a library type. You can create the object type employee_type using the following syntax: